Eighth stage of Africa Eco race canceled due to windy conditions

Robb Pritchard, CCR correspondent

STAGE 8: Thursday, January 6, 2012
Akjoujt - Tenadi
CANCELLED

Desert racers are a hardy bunch and those that take on the challenge
of the Africa Eco Race from the south of France to Dakar are some of
the toughest riders and drivers there are. The glaring African sun,
extreme hot and cold temperatures, hours in the saddle or behind the
wheel, for day after day on the most difficult routes. But in the
heart of the desert there is one thing that brings everything to a
stop; the wind. I don't mean a stiff breeze that takes away the burn
of the sun or a few gusts that flap the walls of the tents... but a
full on gale that started up yesterday evening that was blasting the
sand against our skin as we waited in vain for the race to come past.
Out in the stages the wind blows the sand up the dunes and gives the
impression that they are about 6 inches higher than they really are...
which makes drivers think that they have to go faster up them... Of
course this is dangerous situation and so Rene Metge cancelled the
route on safety grounds.

Even a 414km stage fades into a blur of speed and dust, marked only by a few instances of getting lost, having a puncture, getting stuck or worrying that something is wrong with the car.

Andrei Rusov

And so it was a leisurely breakfast covered in dust at Sergei
Savenko's table this morning. With a snap of his fingers coffee was
ordered from his mechanics and beer was offered for breakfast. He was
in a good mood even though he had a full systems failure yesterday and
retired on the stage. “It was all going OK, we were well up but then
the buggy died with a hydraulic failure and there was nothing we could
do. But we are here, that's the most important thing, enjoying life
with good friends... apart from the mechanic who made the mistake...
we executed him last night!”

At the table was Andrei Rusov who is sometimes a co-driver for
Savenko, sometimes a mechanic for the TranSpecNaz team, and he had a
good explanation about why the drivers can only say 'fine' and 'all
was OK' to me about a stage that was over 400km long. “When you are a
top driver all of your focus is on the road 10 or 20 metres ahead
looking out for rocks, holes and other things that might hurt the car
or pitch it out of the centre of the road,” he said. “When you are
driving somewhere near the maximum you are in what we call the 'zone'
and there is no other moment apart from 'now' so time and distance
mean nothing and every moment or near miss is instantly forgotten
because all of your concentration is forever on what is just about to
come. So even a 414km stage fades into a blur of speed and dust,
marked only by a few instances of getting lost, having a puncture,
getting stuck or worrying that something is wrong with the car. If you
get to the end of the stage with a perfectly respectable time with no
really problems then the answer to the question the journalist asks
you is 'everything was fine' because you actually didn't register
anything else.”

I wish all drivers were so eloquent!

Sergei Savenko, Buggy

Photo by: Robb Pritchard

When all the whisky and vodka bottles from last night's party were
cleaned up we set off again on the tarmac road through the featureless
desert until we got to the capital city of Nouakchott. The Mauritanian
government seem to be performing some kind of large scale social
experiment to see how people can live in a post-apocolyptic wasteland
where there is no water or discernible infrastructure. Battered cars
that look like they are from the set of Mad Max 3 clog the streets,
food vendors sell fruit and meat in clouds of flies and shepherds
throw rocks at their goats as they forage at the sides of the city
centre roads.

A few hundred metres further south and our bivouac awaits with the
semi circle of nomad tents already set up. For the first time people
have enough time to sit around and just chat and the atmosphere is
much more relaxed than normal... we'll be in Senegal tomorrow... Dakar
is close!

Tomorrow's stage is a 280km blast through the dunes, and there are
teams out practising around the camp and after that it is just the
final 23km run along the beach and the fabled Pink Lake